HIV in Europe - America comes from Haiti

The HIV virus outbreak in the US and Europe may have been introduced from Haiti around 1969, ten years earlier than the long-standing hypothesis.

The BBC said the US team observed the blood samples of the first five AIDS patients - all Haitian immigrants - and compared to the gene sequence in 117 other AIDS patients in the world. gender.

With this data, they reproduce the "family tree " of the virus, whereby the " ancestor " of the virus in the US and Europe today comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, because in the 1960s, there were many people in Haiti. Working in Congo, some of them later migrated to the US and Europe and developed AIDS.

Since 1966, HIV has begun to spread in small groups in Haiti. By 1969, a variant in Haiti reached a pandemic. According to the team, understanding the origins of HIV in the US and Africa and other strains can help scientists predict how the virus will continue to mutate in the future.

Campaign for HIV / AIDS prevention in Chandigarh (India) October 28 (Photo: Reuters)

YEW